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Innocenti Report Card

In keeping with UNICEF's mandate to advocate for children in every country, the Centre's Report Card series focuses on the well-being of children in industrialized countries. Each Report Card includes a league table ranking the countries of the OECD according to their record on the subject under discussion. The Report Cards are designed to appeal to a wider audience while maintaining academic rigour.

The Child Care Transition

A League Table of Early Childhood Education and Care in Economically Advanced Countries

A great change is coming over childhood in the world’s richest countries. Today’s rising generation is the first in which a majority are spending a large part of early childhood in some form of out-of-home child care. At the same time, neuroscientific research is demonstrating that loving, stable, secure, and stimulating relationships with caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are critical for every aspect of a child’s development. Taken together, these two developments confront public and policymakers in countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with urgent questions. Whether the child care transition will represent an advance or a setback for today’s children and tomorrow’s world, will depend on the response.